


Open your heart to what the gods have to say

by Isis



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Masturbation, Multi, OT3, Religious Content, Seduction, Threesome - F/M/M, Voyeurism, Yuleporn, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 08:57:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2845310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ragnar goes to Lagertha one night. She is not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open your heart to what the gods have to say

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keerawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/gifts).



> Thanks to Elf for last minute beta.

The long-house felt stifling, and noisy with crying children and snoring men. Aslaug was not even in the bed, Ragnar noticed, when he slid out; he saw her by the fireside, rocking Ivar in her arms, Sigurd clutching at her skirts. 

"I'm going for a walk," he said, and she nodded.

Truly, he had no plan, when he slipped out into the dark and chilly streets of Kattegat. Truly, he did not intend to walk to the house which he had turned over to Lagertha for her use. Truly, he would not have woken the servant who slept at the door; but the servant was awake, and Lagertha was apparently awake too, for he was ushered in to her room.

What Lagertha was not was alone.

"Priest!" he said, with surprise. Athelstan sat close beside Lagertha, on the low fur-covered bench by the fire, and seeing them together brought to his mind the days when they had been all together on the farm. 

"King," said Athelstan gravely, nodding his head, and Ragnar had to bite back the urge to laugh.

"You can call me Ragnar."

"You can call me Athelstan." And at that, Ragnar did laugh, and Athelstan smiled as well.

"You can call _me_ the Earl of Hedeby," snapped Lagertha, "and you can tell me what you are doing here at this hour of the night."

Ragnar shrugged. "I couldn't sleep. Too many squalling brats." Too late he remembered this would not be a thing that would get him sympathy from Lagertha. He dropped down on his haunches and held his hands to the fire. "I missed you."

"You have enough company already. You don't need me."

"Still. And you've got company, too." He raised an eyebrow at Athelstan. "What are you doing here at this hour of the night?"

"We were talking."

"I can see _that_. You've both still got your clothes on." 

Athelstan flushed and looked at his feet, but Lagertha let out a snort of laughter, and he felt a warm glow that was not altogether from the fire. He had missed her smile, her fierceness, her love. Aslaug was beautiful; Aslaug had given him many sons. But Aslaug was not Lagertha.

"Be glad we do, or you wouldn't have been welcome," she told him. 

"A pity," he said carelessly, but it made him wonder. Athelstan had told him that he now held their gods in his heart as well as his own. And he _was_ here at Lagertha's fire, at an hour when most men were abed, whether asleep or entwined with a lover. "Does your Christian god still tell you that you can't fuck?"

To his surprise, Athelstan shrugged. "My god and yours both tell me many things. But I think I've forgotten how to understand their language."

Ragnar straightened and regarded him thoughtfully. Athelstan had changed much over the years they had known each other, but it was evident that the connection he once had to his god was still important to him, and he felt its loss. "When that happens, you need to learn how to listen again. Go up to the cliff. Look at the sky. Open your heart to what the gods have to say."

"But maybe not right this minute," added Lagertha.

"Why not?" said Ragnar. He leaned back against the wall. "Well, you have some choices. You can go to the cliff, or go back to your bed, and let me have some time alone with this woman."

"I was here first," said Athelstan mildly.

"Oho, so the priest has balls after all! Well, then, you can join us."

"And who says that 'this woman' wants to fuck you? Go back to your wife." She turned toward Athelstan, and her voice softened. "'This woman' would take you to her bed, if you're willing. That is another choice."

Athelstan looked toward him, and it seemed, for one moment, that his eyes filled with fire, though of course it was only the reflection of the flames at the hearth. Then he looked at Lagertha, and smiled. "This man would go with you." Tentatively, or so it seemed to Ragnar, he placed a hand on Lagertha's shoulder. She shot a triumphant glance at Ragnar, and then put both of her arms around Athelstan and drew him to her for a kiss.

Perhaps he'd never had a woman, but Athelstan did not look as though he didn't know what to do when kissed by one. Or maybe it was just that it was Lagertha who was kissing him, all passion and heat, her body leaning forward to curve into his, her hands exploring his back, for he wrapped his arms around her and met her passion with his own. Ragnar felt a pang of envy as he watched them. That had been him, once, in her arms.

Lagertha released Athelstan and then reached for one of his hands and entwined her fingers with his. "Come to bed with me," she said, standing, urging him to his feet. "Ragnar can go back to his wife." She led Athelstan a few steps toward the bed, then stopped, and added, "Unless you want him to stay."

Athelstan turned his head, staring silently at Ragnar as though he had never seen him before. He had the look of a man in the grip of the gods, thought Ragnar; Freyja was whispering into his right ear, and the Christ Jesus into his left, and he was a fly in the web of a spider, held helpless between them.

Ragnar shrugged. "Very well." It was four steps to the door, and he took them slowly. His hand was on the latch.

"Stay." 

It was a whisper in a hoarse, cracked voice, but it was enough. He turned and crossed the room in a few long strides and reached out for them both.

"It's he who wants you, not me," warned Lagertha. But the smile she gave him contradicted her words, and he felt a rush of warmth and affection for her. 

"It's too bad, then. Because I want you as well." He slid his arm around her shoulder and nosed into her braids.

She wriggled out from his attempt at an embrace. "He was the one who asked you to stay."

He looked at Athelstan and smiled. "All right, then. Come here."

Lagertha gave Athelstan a gentle push. He still had that web-caught look; not a look of panic, but rather of a man who has accepted that his fate is in the hands of the gods. He licked his lips. "Yes," he said, and then again, clearer, more loudly: "Yes."

Ragnar stepped up to him, took his chin in one hand and pressed his lips against Athelstan's mouth. For a moment Athelstan did nothing but stand there, eyes wide open, one hand still clasping Lagertha's; then he groaned, and his mouth opened, and his other hand gripped Ragnar's shoulder like a drowning man grasping a floating log.

Oh, his mouth was sweet like honey mead, and Ragnar imagined he could taste Lagertha on his lips as well. He took his time exploring Athelstan's mouth, savoring the small noises he elicited, the fingers tightening on his shoulder.

"That's enough," said Lagertha. "Don't forget that I was the one who invited you to bed." She tugged on Athelstan's hand and pulled him away from Ragnar.

"Believe me," said Athelstan, a bit breathlessly, "that is not something I am likely to forget."

She pulled off her clothes, and Ragnar could not look away. The years had been kind to her; or perhaps it was the dim firelight. He reached toward her, but she caught his eye and shook her head the smallest fraction before returning her attention to Athelstan. "So, have you been with a woman yet?"

Athelstan swallowed. "No." 

"How about men?" asked Ragnar.

"No!"

Ragnar grinned, and he reached for Athelstan. "It's better if you get undressed, too."

"Stop that," said Lagertha, slapping his hand away, but then she herself helped Athelstan to strip. "Don't let him frighten you," she advised Athelstan. "This is my room, and my bed."

"This is my village, and my land," Ragnar pointed out.

"I'm not frightened," said Athelstan. Lagertha's hand still rested possessively on his shoulder. He turned toward her and kissed her, and she gave him a little shove and tumbled them both onto the bed.

"That looks very nice," said Ragnar. "May I join in?"

"Yes," said Athelstan, at the same time as Lagertha said, "No." She looked at Athelstan, then back at Ragnar. "Let him have this first time with me. You may watch."

"All right," said Ragnar, his grin widening. He folded his arms across his chest. "Give me something to watch."

Lagertha shot him a familiar look of exasperation, then turned back to Athelstan. "He has no manners. Don't mind him." She gently pushed him over onto his back and straddled him, then ran her hands down his chest, and Ragnar moved a little to the side so he could see them both well. The firelight flickered on the skin of her bare back, and her body cast shadows across Athelstan so he looked like a striped forest cat.

She bent down to kiss him and he reached for her hungrily, feverishly. "Shh, easy." She took one of his hands and moved it to between her legs, and he moaned. "This is what a woman feels like."

"Yes," gasped Athelstan. Ragnar could see that he was hard and wanting, his prick thrusting up into the space between them. He took his own hard prick from his trousers and began to rub it casually.

"He wants you, Lagertha. Be nice to him." 

"Shut up," she said, unruffled, and he laughed.

But he watched with hawk-sharp eyes as Lagertha took Athelstan's prick in her hand. Athelstan's head was tilted back, his dark hair askew, his eyes open and fixed glassily on Lagertha's breasts. It made Ragnar want to go to the bed and touch her, but he thought better of it. Instead he called out to Athelstan, "She's got fine breasts, doesn't she? You should touch them."

This time, Lagertha _didn't_ tell him to shut up.

Athelstan reached a tentative hand and stroked the edge of a breast. "A little harder," Ragnar advised him. "No, don't grab, just stroke." He stroked himself too, a little harder, a little rougher. 

"Ah!" cried Athelstan, and Ragnar frowned; had he come already? Then Lagertha made a soft noise of pleasure, and he could see now it was only that she had slid herself onto his prick. He smiled to himself. What fools those priests were, to deny themselves that joy.

Lagertha leaned forward, and Athelstan guided the breast in his hand to his mouth. A quick learner, that one. Lagertha made another pleased noise, and Athelstan groaned. She leaned back, away from his mouth, shifting herself on him, and he groaned again. "Please," he said. "Please."

Oh, it was a fine thing to watch, a fine thing to listen to: Lagertha's soft huffs and Athelstan's panting, the firelight painting them both in flickers as she lifted herself and settled herself down again on him, moving faster, his hips jerking upward to meet hers, his hands tightening on her hips, pulling her down on every stroke. Athelstan's eyes were closed, now, his hair matted to his forehead with sweat. Then Athelstan gasped and shuddered; Lagertha spared a glance over her shoulder at Ragnar, and smiled; and that was all it took, he was coming into his hand, gasping and shuddering right along with Athelstan.

When he looked again, Lagertha had moved back to Athelstan's side and was stroking his hair. Ragnar held up his messy hand and grinned, and Lagertha rolled her eyes. "You can wipe it on that cloth by the table, and then come here. We need to teach him how to pleasure me with his fingers."

Athelstan groaned, and Ragnar laughed. He wiped his hand and came to sit on the bed with them. "So you liked that, did you?"

"I hated every minute of it," said Athelstan; and then he laughed. "No, of course, what did you think?"

Ragnar reached to Lagertha, who lazily leaned back to let him rub her. "I think that if you had only come to bed with us when we first asked you to, four years ago, it would have saved us all a lot of trouble."


End file.
